Here's an alternative for educating young Black Americans. Unfortunately it feels like a new form of segregation. It will have the pluses of some of the segregated schools that produced many well educated Black citizens, but it will also deny many young Blacks what our tax dollars should provide. It is a dilemma to either pull out and try to save a generation, or continue to work on reform but perhaps have too many lost kids.

Black Americans should be applauded
By Karl Priest Published 01/15/2008 Commentaries and Reports Rating:
KARL PRIEST
Karl Priest was a West Virginia educator for 34 years in including four years as a principal. He taught students from kindergarten through ninth grade, mostly as a math specialist, and spent his last nine years as a Junior High and Middle School math teacher. Karl is currently the State Coordinator for Exodus Mandate (http://exodusmandate-wv.org/).
View all articles by Karl Priest

Black Americans should be applauded
Karl Priest
Columnist EdNews.org

While black citizens are understandably angry about what happened to a young woman in Logan County, WV they should be even more upset about what is happening to their children nationwide. Every school day black students are being neglected (or worse) by the public school system.The reality of this shameful situation should warrant a march out of the public schools by Black Americans.

Black professor Walter Williams looked at the research statistics and concluded that "black education is a disgrace". Dr. Williams believes that, rather than an apology for slavery, the government should apologize for "fraudulent education" and the devastating impact the public schools have had upon black students.

Harvard's Civil Rights Project has reported findings that government intervention in the public schools has not reduced racial achievements gaps. The director of the Civil Rights Project has called the report "depressing". The situation is even worse than depressing.

The superintendent of Pittsburgh City schools, Mark Roosevelt, calls the gap between black and white students the "civil rights issue of our time". He calls the situation "bleak, terrifying, embarrassing, humiliating" and states that America is threatened because of it. Roosevelt admits that the longer that children stay in the public schools the worse off they become.

In 2002 the national NAACP office declared that "The facts are clear: the persistent failure of schools to provide equality of opportunity for all students is having a devastating impact on communities of color and the future of our nation. "Unfortunately, the NAACP wants to try to fix the failing public schools. Their honorable goals will be to no avail.

The Nation's Report Card, which is provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), has revealed that "the Black-White achievement gap between socioeconomically similar children is null (amounting to nothing) at kindergarten entry but sizable by third grade". In plain English, the data shows that the schools play a major part of the problem in causing the achievement gap.

For West Virginia, the Nation's Report Card discloses that, in 2007, 54% of black 4th graders and 48% of black 8th graders scored below Basic in reading.In mathematics the 2007 below Basic percentages for black children were 36% and 69% respectively.Those figures are shocking and sad.

In 2004 America observed the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Blacks cannot wait another 50 years for the public schools to do what those courageous blacks of 1954 had hoped for. In a terrible twist of fate the public schools first barred out black children and now the public schools have bogged down black children. The public schools have been called the "Great Equalizer", but who wants to be equal with failure?

The public schools have been a major battle ground for the Civil Rights movement and Black Americans should be applauded for what they have accomplished in this regard. Unfortunately, they were swimming in the sea of racism and climbed aboard the public school Titanic which was already sinking. Now, Black Americans need to realize the gaping hole in the public schools cannot be plugged and they must rescue their children and board the lifeboats of alternative education.

Most black parents are like all loving parents. They do not want their children socialized with drug and alcohol using classmates.Likewise black parents are concerned about school violence and sexual predators. Black parents demand rigorous academics and high morals. Also, many blacks maintain that the public schools only provide superficial Black History while providing low expectations and both overt and subtle racism.

There is a wonderful option for thinking black parents to achieve true educational freedom without the daily lessons of servitude and conformity provided by the public schools.

Homeschooling is growing by leaps and bounds and it is difficult to keep up with the data, but in 2003 black children made up about 5 percent of homeschooled students. The rate of black homeschoolers is increasing faster than homeschoolers in general. Reports from media sources such as NPR, Newsday, CNN, BET, Reuters, FOX, the Chicago Tribune and others reveal that black families are choosing homeschooling by the thousands.

Referring to public schools, Gilbert Wilkerson (founder of the Network of Black Homeschoolers) proclaims, "We can do better. We have the courage, the strength, the spirituality, the economics--everything we need within the Black community." He also says that blacks do not have to settle for government education programs. "Why are we waiting around for somebody else...to give us a hand for something we can do ourselves? I know we can do better."

There is real diversity of reasons why blacks choose to homeschool.The black adults who homeschool are a mixture of single and dual parents, as well as grandparents. Also, the philosophies and learning strategies of black homeschoolers are as unique as the individual families.

The founders of the National Black Home Educators Association remind us that homeschooling is not a new idea. It was commonly done by everyone's ancestors. For blacks, after slavery, many black mothers did a wonderful job homeschooling their children.

A Google search for "black homeschool" will bring up an amazing number of resources for black parents who want to find a way to give their children the education they deserve. Also, Exodus Mandate-West Virginia will provide assistance upon request.

Granted, many blacks have great reservations about abandoning the public schools. Many black homeschooling pioneers have carefully thought through those and other issues.Joyce Jenkins (director of the National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance) says that blacks "no longer want their children used as guinea pigs in educational experiments to see if their test scores will rise a percentage point or two."

The bottom line is that it is about parents protecting and doing what is best for their children. For the sake of their children, blacks marched up the public school steps. Now, the evidence is overwhelming that black children are at risk. Thankfully, blacks have the right to march back down the public school steps to education freedom.

Published January 16, 2008



Comments
Comment #1 (Posted by SKR) Rating:
As a public high school teacher I have observed that black students (particularly boys) fall terribly behind. Public schools aren't ignoring black students. They can't. The test scores are too important if nothing else. I've observed the problem to be some sort of society based mystery and its not just a black thing. These kids don't care about the sacrifices their great grandparents made to earn it. I've sat with a group of my boys and argued the math that, yes, a college degree will get you farther in life then selling drugs. Their white peers are only a half step behind them on the way down. On the up side I've found that black girls are the most motivated and most rewarding group to work with in general. We must find a way to reach ALL of our boys and teach them the value of respect and hard work.
Comment #2 (Posted by Jim Billingsley) Rating:
A courageous letter that presents real solutions to a very real problem. It is not just black children who have been condemned to the irreclaimable government schools, but all children whose parents shirk their responsibility to provide their children an education grounded in truth. The government schools today are incompatable with any family whose values include: virtue, honesty, chastity, responsibility, and liberty.
Comment #3 (Posted by Joseph Mastropaolo) Rating:
The article is excellent but does not go far enough. The root reason that the public schools fail Black America is their monolithic teaching of evolution that portrays blacks as nearly apes. The public schools teach that Darwin was a great scientist. Well, here is what Darwin said: "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." -- Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man. New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1874. p. 178. Black Americans should boycott the public schools until evolution is expelled.
Comment #4 (Posted by Dr. Bill Bray) Rating:
Karl has a message we all need to hear, and heed. Good stuff.
Comment #5 (Posted by EME) Rating:
As a home schooling mom, I am delighted to see black families leave government schools and begin to home school their children. This is a great article and I pray that it encourages more black Americans to join the exodus from the public school system.